For the past four weeks, I have stayed at a lovely little campground in the middle of the forest called Ben Lilly.  I have no idea why it's called that.  Probably after some old rich dude who gave the forest a lot of money.

Anyway, it's pretty.  Here's what I woke up to one morning when I looked out of my tent.

The stream that runs through here is called Willow Creek.  It's a smaller stream that feeds into the Gila River.  There was record snow pack on the mountains this year so it's flowing really well.  It was nice listening to it rushing by as I fell asleep at night.  Very peaceful.

The camp site is pretty high altitude so there are a lot of cool trees I don't usually see like Engelmann and Blue Spruce.  But the elevation drops off pretty quickly as I get more into my mapping area and it looks really different.

A lot of what I'm working in is in the Ponderosa Pine forest, which is a couple columns, or climate zones, lower than the Spruce/Fir forest.  It's different looking, but still really pretty.


Then there's a huge part of my mapping area that is really weird.  I'm still trying to figure out what's up with it.  It's a lot like the Ponderosa forest in terms of grasses and forbs (flowering plants) but there are hardly any Ponderosas at all.  Instead, there are scattered junipers and a bunch of open grassland.  Here it is with a storm brewing overhead.


A possible reason for all this open area is fire.  There are a lot of areas with burned trees, so it's definitely prone to it.  This part has just had enough time to get back to a juniper grassland, and the Ponderosas in similar surrounding areas indicate that it's trying to get back to a Ponderosa forest.  This is what I am trying to show with my mapping. 

So that's just a little bit about where I'm working and what I'm doing.  I won't bore you with all the details but hope you enjoy the pictures.

In theory, I like to keep things clean.  When I first moved into my apartment, I said "I am going to clean a different room in the house every weekend.  That way everything will stay clean all the time!" 

Even though that didn't really happen, at all, I still have the desire to have a nice, clean apartment where I can invite people over, if I ever had any people to invite over.  Oh well.

Anyway, it's hard to clean up after myself especially during field season when apartment life consists of walking in with muddy boots, dropping all my stuff somewhere in the living room, finding something to eat in the freezer and collapsing on the couch.  Stuff can get a little dirty.

But I found a simple, free way to (partially) remedy this problem.  And all I had to do was renew my lease.

Remember the muddy boots?  Well, muddy boots make for muddy carpets.  I've been thinking about renting a shop vac or something to clean up the drippy, muddy spots that have accumulated over the two years that I've lived here.  But it's a funny thing how working hours seem to coincide so well with business hours, so I don't really get much of that stuff done.

So imagine my surprise when I find a note stuck to my door announcing that if I renew my lease, I will get a FREE carpet cleaning.  What?  A carpet cleaning that costs no money and involves no work for me?  I'm in!

I scheduled an appointment for this past Friday morning, between 8:30 and 9 a.m.  This was an added bonus because I got to sleep in while waiting for the carpet cleaner guy to arrive.  By 9, everything had been picked up off the floor and the dude shows up with his special clean-y vacuum.  I waited while he did his thing, which couldn't have lasted more that 15 minutes, and when he walked out the door, I had a fresh clean carpet under my feet.

A guy I knew in school once told me that he would vacuum his room every weekend because he liked the way the lines looked on the floor.  Now I see what he means.  And now that my carpet is clean, I'm going to work hard to keep it that way for as long as I can.  And who knows, maybe I'll get another free cleaning next year!

I've had a hard week and even though it went well, I am still kind of unhappy.  It's probably because I'm still tired from driving for a total of 11 hours (there and back) and everything that happened in between.  And next week I get to do it all over again.  I really wish I could hide from it and it would just go away, but since I can't do that in real life, I'll have to do it here.  I'm going to start by going back to a happier time, long ago.  And by long ago, I mean last week, when I was in Michigan.

I have several favorite places that I've been to recently and over the years, and Portage Lake is definitely one of them.  When my parents bought the cottage a few years back, the only thing I was disappointed about was that I hadn't been able to experience it sooner.  Whether I'm in Michigan or New Mexico, living near cool stuff is important.  In NM, it's the mountains.  But in Michigan, it's all about the lakes.  And not just the Great Lakes.  There are lots of smaller, more peaceful lakes where I like to spend my time.

Portage is actually part of a chain of about 5 lakes put together.  I can't remember any of the other names right now except Zukey, because of the Zukey Lake Tavern.

But anyway.  My absolute most favorite thing to do when I'm at the lake is go kayaking.  I'd have to go ahead and say it's my favorite sport.  Does it count as a sport?  It's just so much fun, and so relaxing.  Plus it's always an adventure, going to different canals and things like that.

The best place to go kayaking on Portage is Honey Creek, which is accessed directly from the lake.  I was surprised to find out my sister had never been there before, since she's there way more often that I am.  Here she is going into the creek for the first time.

 

And here's a few shots of the creek itself.  So pretty.




I also saw a blue heron, who posed for me very nicely.


I had such a great time at the lake, and I'm so glad I got to go again this summer.  It's definitely the best time to be in Michigan, and one of the best places to be.

Hi there.  How are you?  I'm great.  This is a lovely week for me because I am not at work.  I'm in Michigan instead.  Going to the lake, watching movies, stuff like that.  It's grand.

I'm sad that I've been a bit behind on posting, reading and commenting.  It's something I enjoy doing very much and helps give me that highly necessary "me time" I require.  But alas, work is work.

So it's good that I have this time off.  It came at just the right time, too.  For a lot of reasons.  And now I can make some more posts about what I've been up to.  I also haven't totally been neglecting the blog, just making a new one.  Mainly because I like trying out new layouts.  It's fun.  And also because I was drunk one night and came up with a whole bunch of really stupid blog names.  I think Matt should use one of them for his blog.  If he makes one.  He says they're stupid but I think he secretly likes them.  Because he's always asking, "are you going to write about this in your blog?" and saying "you should take a picture of this to put in your blog."  He's funny like that.

So I linked the new blog up top.  It's a fail blog of sorts, because those are funny.  I hope this one is funny.  I figure I'll post in there sometimes, when I feel like it.  Kind of like this one, I suppose.  

My last oil change was at Jiffy Lube.  I paid over $100 for their "signature service" and in return received "free" coupons for a bunch of crappy deals I never even used.  This time, I tried a different approach.  I got Matt's dad to do it. 

I had actually been planning on doing this for quite some time now (as in, 2000 miles ago) but just never got around to it because I'm out of town, like, every day.  So finally, yesterday, Matt went to his volunteer thing that he does every other Saturday, and I went to his house to visit his dad.

It's kind of weird going to your boyfriend's house when he is not there or coming with you over there.  Just sort of like, hey, I know he's not home, but ummm... can I get an oil change?  Luckily, his dad agreed.  He actually kind of owes me because I bought him about $50 worth of dried cranberries one time that he hasn't completely paid me back for yet. 

We went over to Auto Zone where they were having a really good deal on Valvoline oil.  $15.99 for 5 liters and a filter.  While I was there, I learned that once you use synthetic oil on your car, you can't go back to the regular kind after that.  So I went with the regular kind, to support my poor friends in the oil industry I suppose.  Ha ha. 

The oil change would have went smoothly except for one minor detail.  About a month ago, in a moment of pure genius, I accidentally kicked the hood release so now it doesn't really work anymore.  We spent a while trying to pry the hood open manually with dowels and screw drivers and things of that nature, but it wasn't really working.  Finally we ended up doing something Matt had suggested in the first place, which was to pull on the cable with pliers.  I tried to suggest this to his dad, but I didn't really understand what cable Matt had meant, and I kind of still don't.  But anyway, it worked, and it was super easy to change after that.  I could probably even do it myself after a couple times of them telling me what to do. 

During this process, I learned a couple things.  1) Plastic produce bags are an incredible invention that serve many purposes, including using them to unscrew the oil nut and filter so you don't get dirty oil all over yourself.  And 2) Jiffy Lube screwed both of these things on only finger tight, so that they could have just fallen off at any moment.  Awesome. 

All in all, it worked out well.  So I guess the moral of the story is, don't pay $100 for something that your boyfriend's dad will do for free.

Blue corn nachos with lamb steak sauteed in onions, rosemary and basil in garlic olive oil, topped with cheddar, fresh sliced jalapeno, and fire-roasted black bean salsa



Beef flank pinwheel with provolone and spinach

Despite the car crappiness, I did have a very nice holiday weekend.  Neither Matt nor I had ever been to Mount Taylor, so we weren't sure what to expect.  It's a volcano, so I was thinking steep-y steep with pine trees and stuff like that, which it did have.  But I wasn't expecting this at all.

This is the beautiful meadow where we had our campsite.  I loved it.  And there were quite a few more just like it.  We spent part of the last day scoping out other places we could camp next time.

Camping is not much without a campfire.  Even though I've been camping like a hundred times thanks to my job, and I know how to collect wood and build campfires just fine, I was not very much involved in these activities much beyond digging out the fire pit and putting rocks around it.  When camping with your significant other and his friends, it is important to remember that fire building is an important demonstration of male-ness that you probably should just avoid being involved in. 

So I took pictures.

I can't believe it's been since May 20 since I posted anything.  I feel as though I have been perpetually out of town.  I should be out of town this week.  I was going to go to Silver City for horse training but it was canceled because of a fire or something.  Since I was planning on doing that, everyone else decided to go work in Glenwood, which is about 2 hours away from everything I'm mapping, so it would be pointless for me to go meet up with them, considering the drive from here is like 5 hours.  So I'm staying.  It's kind of nice to not have to go anywhere for once but I'm nervous that it's already June (!!!!) and I haven't started on anything yet.

I figured out that I am allowed to go work on my own for a little while on Mondays if that's how it works out.  But it has to be something close to town and the main road, because apparently I am a terrible driver and have a bad sense of direction.  Really, who knew? 

Anyway, so this weekend Matt and I went camping on Mt Taylor, which is in Grants about an hour away from here.  I had fun for the most part, minus a few crappy things.

On Friday night, I spent the night at his house because it would be easier for us to leave from there together on Saturday morning.  I parked my car, which we were taking because it is bigger and has all-wheel drive, in the street so that his parents could get out easier in the morning (they were going to Kansas).  At about 3:45 am, we woke up to loud noises outside and a car driving away very fast.  Matt had a bad feeling so he went outside to investigate.  He came back to report that someone had been throwing rocks at cars, and that mine had gotten hit.  The rock hit the back driver's side door just below the window, scratching the paint and punching a quarter-sized hole in the fiberglass.  Considering it barely missed the window, I was very lucky in that sense. 

Matt's neighbors down the street, a very nice Vietnamese family, were not so lucky.  The entire back window had been smashed out.  We talked to them in the morning and the man asked us to call the police for him, probably because he was embarrassed by his English skills, which were good enough, just hard to understand, especially on the phone.  When the police officer showed up, we told them about the neighbors and pointed out the car to him, but he pretty much ignored that and just took down our information.  I guess everyone has to file a separate report, which I think is stupid, but what can you do?

This morning I filed a claim with my insurance company, so it looks like I will be getting the exact same door fixed that was just finished being fixed like 2 months ago.  That's awesome.  Plus I also somehow broke the hood release, all my doors are squeaking for some reason, and the tires are out of alignment.  This is looking to be a spectacular fun-filled week of car fixing appointments, or at least making appointments.

I left work early today because of cramps.  Is that bad?